


Want

by LovingLovelyLoners



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, This is like an aziraphale's thoughts through the ages thing, also aziraphale is briefly married to a 16 year old which I find kind of hilarious, not very conclusive but honestly I really love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22429378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovingLovelyLoners/pseuds/LovingLovelyLoners
Summary: True angels can’t want, because wanton angels go to hell.And yet, days after Aziraphale meets Adam and Eve, he learns the wretched pull of want.
Relationships: Aziraphale (Good Omens)/Original Female Character(s), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 14





	Want

Angels are not supposed to _want_. Yes, they want to spread Her grace, they want to combat the forces of hell, but can you really _want_ of the inevitable? Because that’s how it always feels, in Heaven. Angels are not creatures of want, Angels are creatures of action, unquestioning of Her, and in return, they live, supposedly, in the ethereal bliss of knowing anything they could need is already theirs.

There’s no need to want anything else, right?

Angels don’t _want,_ and they certainly don’t want the way humans mean when they say _need_. It occurs to Aziraphale that the only angels who ever really felt _want_ were the ones who fell. The ones who wanted knowledge, the ones who _needed_ answers that would not be given, so they had to go. He had never felt _want_ in Heaven, didn’t need to know why, why, _why,_ the way newly damned creatures raggedly screamed as they Fell from the sky.

True angels can’t want, because wanton angels go to hell.

And yet, days after Aziraphale meets Adam and Eve, he learns the wretched pull of want.

Because Aziraphale knows love the way it was molded into his soul, the way She loves all Her creations, the way he is supposed to love humans. Love is something hopeful, hoping she won’t eat the apple, hoping they won’t ask _why,_ but it is also easy resignation, casting them out of the garden, casting them out of heaven. Because love is doing what’s best for the other, regardless of how it makes them _feel,_ regardless of what they might _want._

But Love, to humans? This is something entirely new, and this is something that Aziraphale _wants_.

Love, it seems, is something of heaven and hell. Because it is all the fierce protectiveness of Her heavenly will, but it is also the deep, uncontrollable lust that defines corruption. Love is the affection and beauty he has learned in heaven, but unlike heaven, humanity’s love falls on no moral scale. It is not a reward for doing good, but instead an acceptance of everything that the other is, an appreciation for every part of them, good and bad.

Aziraphale _wants_ to feel that. The kind of love that could make him destroy the world to find the other, not destroy it in order to cleanse them or teach them a lesson.

So, since heaven has not taught him of Earthly love, he watches humans, watches them move with each other, towards each other. In addition to his heavenly duties, he supports their art, their music, their culture, and when the first “official” Unions of men and women come about in Mesopotamia, he takes note of where love lies within them and outside of them.

Knowing that love is not defined by these Unions is enough reason for him not to try until he watches Jesus wailing as he’s nailed to a cross and Crowley says that she showed him the kingdoms of the world.

His wife is a girl named Rachel, betrothed to him by her parents and attached to him at only 16 years old.

Two things become fairly obvious very quickly into their marriage. That she loves him, and that he can not love her the way he wants to love, the way she deserves to be loved.

Aziraphale thought it could be enough to support her, to show affection, to accept the good and bad of her. And he does, he appreciates the disparate parts of her, the curiosity about where he disappears too, the wonder at the _luck_ that surrounds him and all he encounters. Her kindness brings him happiness, and her amazement at him is quite flattering. He cares about her, he does, but he cannot Love her.

She knows it too. She’s so intelligent, another thing that he appreciates. She says it herself one day, as she dips a cup into their pot of wine.

“I love you,” she says. “But I can not know you.”

And Aziraphale recognizes another part of hell in Love, then. Because Love, the way he wants it, is something equally selfish and selfless. Love is sacrifice, but Love is also wanting to feel loved, the affirmation that you yourself can be known, and every part of you Loved in that desperate, needy, stupid way.

She can love him because she knows he _knows_ her. He does. He knows her story, her parents, the only city she has ever known. He knows the noises she makes in the most intimate moments, has shared in things she has not shared with anyone else. He has seen all of her.

But she doesn’t _know_ him. She can’t, it’s not like he can just _tell_ her that he’s an ethereal being, and that her life is just a tiny, tiny fraction of his. Despite her intelligence, she could never ‘understand’ the struggle within him, that he is not allowed to want, that he is scared to, because it would take him from one place humanity doesn’t understand to another. He knows she cannot _know_ him, and so he never Loves her.

He wishes that he Loved her, but he can only love her. Platonic love, Responsible love. Not love that comes from awe and wonder, not love that lets him luxuriate in just the thought of her.

When he realizes this, he pushes himself mostly out of her mind, pulls the idea of her into the minds of the kindest men in the city, and promptly heads off to the closest tavern.

It’s only when he runs into Crowley there, only when he catches himself trying to tempt the demon to a meal that he realizes that drawing men to his former wife was a temptation in and of itself. He’s already crossed the line, already sinned, and there was no hellfire, no brimstone, no Fall. Nothing’s changed, the almighty hasn’t spoken to anyone directly in thousands of years.

It’s only then that he dares to think, what if?

Because there’s something in Crowley that is...indescribable. Something awe-inspiring in the jet-black wings sheltering children from the rains of purgation, in bright, curious eyes, noticing him at the beginning, asking “You what??” watching over humanity as closely as Aziraphale does himself.

There’s something that connects them, not just balance, the way heaven acts like it is. In many ways, despite everything, they are similar. One could argue, the same. A demon out of place in hell, an angel out of place in heaven, both walking the earth, hoping...

Well. Aziraphale can’t assume, shouldn’t really. He doesn’t know much about the demon, besides that they’re fated rivals, hereditary enemies. The same piece on opposite sides of the board.

Still, he wonders.

And when those thoughts are brought out into open air, when Crowley suggests that they work together instead of constantly canceling each other out, of course he has to say no. He is a guardian of the light, and Crowley is the bloody black knight, and he couldn’t just give in to the temptation of an easier lifestyle when a life of hard work for the sake of heaven is the whole reason he was even put on Earth.

A few years later though, Crowley comes to him while he’s at his current home, and asks again. This time, no one is dressed like a knight, and the humans are the ones wrecking havoc on each other. This time, the proposed Arrangement feels less like a temptation and more like a partnership, so Aziraphale tentatively agrees that they can help each other out.

The first time he agrees not to bless a small town in exchange for Crowley not corrupting it’s leader, he expects to feel a lot more guilty. Instead, he walks away from their meeting almost giddy with excitement. Not that he’s happy that he’s not doing good, he’d love to help the people of this town, but instead of working, he’s spent his time experiencing the intricacies of the community. He and Crowley are (miraculously) invited into a local home to taste their unique cuisine, they explore the twists and turns of the paths outside cluttered homes, they marvel together at the sculptures the townspeople carved from wood to worship gods and concepts they can not understand, but are still so wholly faithful to.

Instead of trying to control humanity, together, they appreciate it for what it is, over and over again. Sometimes it’s not doing blessings so Crowley won’t tempt humans to sin, sometimes it’s one of them doing both jobs for convenience sake. Eventually, they start to find each other just to have a meal and catch up, explore the new time, interact with the new people. Over the years, he fine tunes his sense for the demon, as Crowley seems to do for him, because suddenly it feels like he is always there when Aziraphale needs him.

Which is exactly why Aziraphale becomes more and more terrified for what could happen to Crowley if Hell was to find out about their...fraternizing. Because despite everything, he has come to rely on Crowley, in more ways than one. When he travels alone, when he eats alone, when he watches over people alone, he can still appreciate them, but, to be honest, it’s lonely. It’s not like he couldn’t go back to performing every miracle heaven demanded, but he wants to enjoy his time on Earth, and having someone there, someone who _knows_ him, someone who understands humanity the way he does...it makes everything a little brighter.

He learns that, throughly, as Crowley sleeps through a century. It was hard to understand why he would want holy water when they first argued, Aziraphale felt blindsided by the request, too fearful of the thought of Crowley actually _dying_. His absence makes Aziraphale realize just how important Crowley has become to him, and he lets himself feel punished for taking that for granted, for refusing to trust him.

He misses Crowley, he thinks of them exploring, imagines them dancing together at the newly formed gentlemen’s clubs. Crowley wouldn’t necessarily like it, but Aziraphale thinks he would still come, still watch and applaud with a knowing smile. He would dress up in the inventive European couture too, always changing, and together they could act out all of humanities intricate new customs, just for fun, just to spend to spend time together.

He really misses Crowley, but he doesn’t realize _why_ until 1941 when he sees him again, when Crowley steps on consecrated ground, blows up Nazis, and saves his books. Crowley is _back_ and it feels like something blooms in his chest, but it also catches fire, a delicious burning, a carnal need _show_ him, to have Crowley understand that...that.

Aziraphale Loves him.

Which...fuck. Makes things more complicated. “Be careful what you wish for,” that’s what humans always said, wasn’t it?

The more Aziraphale thinks about it, the more he realizes it’s true. How much he would give up to make the demon grin. How he anticipates every moment with him, and maybe he had just now given it the title, Love, but his Love, this Love? It was long and deep and thick and wanton in ways angels are not allowed to be.

But he Loves him. He does. He stares at the demon, on about something he’d done, clutching at a wine glass, and Aziraphale feels it course through his human body his ethereal form alike, pulsing with that spark, with that feeling borne not of heaven or hell, but of humanity.

Love.


End file.
